I’m back with another batch of Early Access release highlights. As always, even if you don’t like buying titles that are still in Early Access, remember to wishlist any games that catch your attention so you’ll be notified when they get a full release.
Here are five Early Access games that might be worth checking out:
Satisfactory
Developer: Coffee Stain Studios
Platform: Windows PC
Price: $29.95 (Price will increase)
After being on the Epic Games Store for just over a year, Satisfactory has finally made its way to Steam. This latest title by Coffee Stain Studios is a first-person, open world factory management game that can be played alone, or through online co-op.
Players explore the massive alien world of Massage-2(AB)b in search of its valuable resources. To aid in exploration, players can craft jetpacks and a variety of vehicles.
The real meat of the game is creating intricate, multi-story factories to process the planet’s priceless resources. Players can automate their factories with a wide range of conveyor belts and robotic components, and can create elaborate railway networks and roads to ship materials to and from remote facilities.
Satisfactory has no firm final release date, though the current estimate is 2022.
Space Haven
Developer: Bugbyte Ltd.
Platforms: Windows PC, Linux, Mac
Price: $22.99 (Price will increase)
Space Haven is a sandbox space exploration game about leading a small civilian crew to their new home across the galaxy. Ships are constructed tile-by-tile from hundreds of modular parts.
Tend to your crew’s needs, and ensure they stay safe and healthy by monitoring the ship’s oxygen levels and temperature with extensive networks of pipes and vents.
Your crew will also need to survive the hazards of an inhospitable and uncaring universe. Equip your crew with weapons and armor so they can raid abandoned space stations or ship hulks for resources, and fight off pirates and hostile aliens in ship-to-ship combat and boarding operations.
Space Haven is estimated to release sometime in the next one or two years. Space Haven is also available on GOG.
ATOM RPG: Trudograd
Developer: AtomTeam
Platform: Windows PC
Price: $10.99
Trudograd is a standalone expansion that continues the story of 2018’s ATOM RPG. Like its predecessor, Trudograd is an old-school cRPG heavily inspired by the older Fallout and Wasteland games.
The game is set two years after the original, which followed a rookie Soviet ATOM agent tasked with venturing into the post-apocalyptic wastes of the USSR several decades after a nuclear exchange with NATO. That agent discovered a new threat that could destroy the already scattered remnants of humanity.
In the sequel, players are sent to a ruined metropolis that might contain what humanity needs to fend off the threat revealed at the end of the original game. Besides a new story, Trudograd features numerous enhancements, tweaks, and upgrades that were requested by the community since the first game launched nearly two years ago.
ATOM RPG: Trudograd is set to get a full release in around six months. The game is also available on GOG.
Drox Operative 2
Developer: Soldak Entertainment
Platforms: Windows PC, Linux
Price: $14.99 (Price will increase)
Another cult hit RPG that has a sequel in Early Access is Drox Operative. In Drox Operative 2, players will once again have a chance to explore a dynamic and evolving galaxy.
The game is described as an RPG where you are the captain of a single ship traveling around a galaxy, populated by alien races and factions that are playing a 4X game.
Factions will declare war on each other, sign treaties, and territories will constantly shift and change as the galaxy goes about their business, regardless- or because of- your intervention. Accept quests, negotiate with the various factions, and upgrade your ship with new weapons and components. You can even team up with a friend in online co-op.
Drox Operative 2 is estimated to get a full release in around nine months.
Mists of Noyah
Developer: Pyxeralia
Platforms: Windows PC, Linux
Price: $19.99 (Price will increase)
Finally, we come to Mists of Noyah, a 2D action-RPG where players team up to upgrade and protect an abandoned fort besieged by monsters and rival factions.
During the day, players will venture out into the world in search of resources and NPCs that they can bring back to their stronghold to gain various bonuses and services.
On every full moon, the fort will be attacked by monsters. Should the fort fall, it’s game over. Not only that, but the monsters attacking the fort will gradually evolve over the weeks, introducing new creature types and upgraded enemies. They will also build their own strongholds you’ll need to destroy, to stem the tide of enemy reinforcements.
Mists of Noyah will be in Early Access for at least a year.
Which of these games are you interested in? Are you playing any recent Early Access releases that we missed? Tell us more in the comments below!
This is Niche Early Access. In this column, we regularly showcase various promising games that are currently in some form of early access or development, and haven’t reached full release. Please let us know if there’s a game you want us to showcase!
